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Xhosa Cole: Ibeji
by Karl Ackermann
Few places on the global jazz scene are enjoying the enthusiastic resurgence of the genre more than the UK. Names that are becoming more familiar—Binker Golding, Nubya Garcia, Idris Rahman, Shabaka Hutchings and others—have triggered something of a youth movement. Emerging in that group is yet another top-notch saxophonist, Xhosa Cole. Cole's sophomore release, Ibeji is full of terrific music, wrapped in a missed opportunity. Ibeji takes its name from the Yoruba religion, and features six percussionists individually ...
Continue ReadingXhosa Cole: K(no)w Them, K(no)w Us
by Chris May
When tenor saxophonist Xhosa Cole won the BBC Young Jazz Musician of the Year prize in 2018, Britain was introduced to a young player with formidable technique and a solid grasp of the post-John Coltrane African American tradition. Cole was then little known outside Birmingham, his hometown in England's Midlands, and he had developed independently of London's alternative jazz scene. His classic as opposed to radical aesthetic brought a refreshing vibe. So too did that of saxophonist Alex Clarke, a ...
Continue ReadingRachel Musson: I Went This Way
by Mike Jurkovic
Let's agree that, by a consensus of one, Debbie Sanders recital of saxophonist Rachel Musson's thought-through and through-read play-by- metaphoric-play/lecture on improvisation gets annoying as all hell so quickly that one may find oneself searching madly for a bonus instrumental version. But the music on saxophonist Musson's I Went This Way is an ambitious, teasingly ambiguous album, all shift, riddle, and hijinks. And that's a really good thing because it takes a lot for anyone to be so sure of ...
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